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http://www.acting-man.com/blog/media/2014/06/sarc-detector-2.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]
I know, I know, on the surface it sounds mental. This isn't 'Nintendo 1st party title #63' though so I thought there might be a chance of new buyers being drawn in, just for this one title.

[quote="Scum, post: 131314184"]I'm not. I expect many to get a used WiiU instead to play Bayonetta 2.[/QUOTE]
That's a good point though, I hadn't thought of that.

No!!! I see you! The last time I took one of your post seriously in a previous Media thread I seemed the fool to a couple users because you were joking. What you really mean is XB1 rules all!!! And Destiny couldn't help the PS4 or some crap like that!!!

Seriously though....

I ultimately did not like Destiny but I'm glad to see it's doing well for a new IP. I hope Destiny does well enough world wide so that Bungie won't find themselves in a bind with Activision.

I can't wait to get my hands on Yo Kai Watch when it's localized and I can say the say for the new 3DS XL too.

Lastly I hope the PS4 can grow some long legs from the surprising Destiny hype in Japan to carry itself until some more appealing Japanese centric games come out.

Platinum taking too long (and thus costing too much money) must be one of the reasons SEGA abandoned Bayo franchise, and everyone else didn't pick it up except for Nintendo.
To put it bluntly, Platinum and Bayo franchise together is simply a bad investment matter. Nintendo didn't have many franchise floating around (ready to be grabbed by some publisher) to choose from though.

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Platinum taking too long (and thus costing too much money) must be one of the reasons SEGA abandoned Bayo franchise, and everyone else didn't pick it up except for Nintendo.
To put it bluntly, Platinum and Bayo franchise together is simply a bad investment matter. Nintendo didn't have many franchise floating around (ready to be grabbed by some publisher) to choose from though.

SEGA abandoned Bayo 2 because of their plan to abandon everything and just focusing on franchises that are guaranteed to make money (Sonic/Yakuza/Aliens etc...). All we know at this point is, SEGA told Platinum to go to Nintendo for publishing Bayo 2. This whole "no one else wanted Bayo 2 except Nintendo" is nonsense. Do we have proof that they approached any other publisher for publishing the game? No.

Bayo 2 will probably flop. One thing that I'm interested to know is, if there is going to be a Bayo 3, given that they will probably have a choice to go to another publisher, will Platinum approach Nintendo again or not. The audience is clearly not there. There hasn't been that much audience for them on other consoles before, but whatever it was, it was more than Wii U. They wanted to "reach to new audiences" for Bayo 2, well there are not many of them.

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SEGA abandoned Bayo 2 because of their plan to abandon everything and just focusing on franchises that are guaranteed to make money (Sonic/Yakuza/Aliens etc...). All we know at this point is, SEGA told Platinum to go to Nintendo for publishing Bayo 2. This whole "no one else wanted Bayo 2 except Nintendo" is nonsense. Do we have proof that they approached any other publisher for publishing the game? No.

Member

SEGA abandoned Bayo 2 because of their plan to abandon everything and just focusing on franchises that are guaranteed to make money (Sonic/Yakuza/Aliens etc...). All we know at this point is, SEGA told Platinum to go to Nintendo for publishing Bayo 2. This whole "no one else wanted Bayo 2 except Nintendo" is nonsense. Do we have proof that they approached any other publisher for publishing the game? No.

Bayo 2 will probably flop. One thing that I'm interested to know is, if there is going to be a Bayo 3, given that they will probably have a choice to go to another publisher, will Platinum approach Nintendo again or not. The audience is clearly not there. There hasn't been that much audience for them on other consoles before, but whatever it was, it was more than Wii U. They wanted to "reach to new audiences" for Bayo 2, well there are not many of them.

I mean just looking at the type of game it is (not a big selling series, in a dying genre, from a generally financially unsuccessful developer), it's not hard for me to believe they had issues finding someone to take the game and went to the first parties, who take on more risks to chase niche audiences.

I mean the studio is even at the point they're doing licensed wetwork for Activision, which is pretty close to the bottom of the barrel for an independent studio given how that relationship usually is.

Generally you have to have a pretty strong bartering position to keep your IP (in terms of prior success) and also only select publishers will ever let you do it (normally EA, Activision, Take-Two, and Microsoft).

They're usually not the world's easiest publishers to sign with either given how selective they're getting. Microsoft is probably the easiest right now since they're very content hungry whereas the others aren't.

Wouldn't be surprised at all if Bayonetta was seen by other pubs and rejected since not only did the original not sell very well but the game would also be hard to market due to its aesthetics and crudeness.

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I mean just looking at the type of game it is (not a big selling series, in a dying genre, from a generally financially unsuccessful developer), it's not hard for me to believe they had issues finding someone to take the game and went to the first parties, who take on more risks to chase niche audiences.

I mean the studio is even at the point they're doing licensed wetwork for Activision, which is pretty close to the bottom of the barrel for an independent studio given how that relationship usually is.

That's very common in situations where you don't own the IP, but I'm not sure Nintendo wants to spend $20-$30 million making a game where it's going to sell like this.

I'm kind of assuming the franchise is going to die with this entry in general.

Given how Bayonetta is selling I feel they could take the same amount of money and put it toward 4-5 other projects with niche appeal and hit a larger amount of people and also have a better chance of making their money back.

Like I like Bayonetta so I'm appreciative that we're getting a sequel, but businesswise I don't really see the benefit of taking a risk at this scale when the likelihood of paying off is so low.

Fatal Frame is likely to reach at least the same if not more people in Japan at this rate, and then you'd still have 3-4 titles to target at other markets with the rest of the budget.

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Bayonetta is a brand that we want to see become stronger, reaching the hands of more and more gamers, so we have continued to consult with SEGA, the previous game&#8217;s publisher, on how we can make sure this takes place. Our answer was a new partnership with Nintendo.

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Given how Bayonetta is selling I feel they could take the same amount of money and put it toward 4-5 other projects with niche appeal and hit a larger amount of people and also have a better chance of making their money back.

Like I like Bayonetta so I'm appreciative that we're getting a sequel, but businesswise I don't really see the benefit of taking a risk at this scale when the likelihood of paying off is so low.

That does make a big assumption about what the budget actually is, do we have any hints? Is it not possible seeing as how low their games sell but keep getting work that they are very efficient and keep budgets low?

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Given how Bayonetta is selling I feel they could take the same amount of money and put it toward 4-5 other projects with niche appeal and hit a larger amount of people and also have a better chance of making their money back.

Like I like Bayonetta so I'm appreciative that we're getting a sequel, but businesswise I don't really see the benefit of taking a risk at this scale when the likelihood of paying off is so low.

Fatal Frame is likely to reach at least the same if not more people in Japan at this rate, and then you'd still have 3-4 titles to target at other markets with the rest of the budget.

They obviously expected more back when they made the deal when you consider how long ago that was. I'm curious to see what they do to secure exclusive sw for future platforms going forward after these last two Platinum games lol.

Mrgrgr

That does make a big assumption about what the budget actually is, do we have any hints? Is it not possible seeing as how low their games sell but keep getting work that they are very efficient and keep budgets low?

Well, it's been a lot of years, and the studio is nearly 200 employees with quite a few seemingly on this project.

Unless they all take really low salaries I'd have a really hard time imagining below $15 million for Bayonetta 2.

I think what really helps Platinum get work though is that they have failure of product instead of failure of process. They ship well rated games on budget and on time, so new publishers keep picking them up hoping they will be the one to publish the breakout hit.

I'd be surprised if the sequel cost less given how long it's taken, even with the halted development at one point.

Sales struggles

Minami says the biggest challenge running Platinum is finding new work for the team.

Asked to rate Platinum's progress over the past five years, he gives the developers at the studio an A. "The team has been working really hard," he says. "They've held up their end of the bargain and done a really good job of putting out really high-quality games."

On the business side, he's less enthusiastic. "Whether we've sold as well as we would have liked, or whether the company has the amount of money that everybody would love to have in the company, I think I'd probably rate it as a C or even a D.

"We obviously grew up being part of the domestic Japanese market &#8212; a lot of our staff spent time in domestic Japanese publishers, focused really on the domestic Japanese market. And now we're trying to expand and focus more outward and think about gamers worldwide. But when you think about what global success really means, that means we need to be selling more titles. Our games need to sell more copies."

As of the end of 2012, Bayonetta was Platinum's best seller, moving over a million units. But Minami says that's not good enough. "Bayonetta didn't sell what we wanted it to sell," he says. "We were hoping it was going to do a little bit better than that, though you can't put it all on the game itself. I think there were a lot of issues with when it came out, the kind of marketing behind it."

"We have to think a lot about what resonates with consumers globally and find that secret sauce and make sure that goes into our games," he says. "And there's a lot of places we need to look for that: it's not just in art, it's also in game design, it's also in music ... I think the one thing that we want more than anything in the immediate future &#8212; and it's something we continue to work hard on &#8212; is we definitely want people to understand that we're making games here in Japan, but we're making games for everybody."

"We've never used this size of a team and this amount of time to build a game before," he told Famitsu magazine, "and even so, this is the first time it's been so tough for me, especially towards the end of development. I suppose I'm getting what I deserved there."

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Well, it's been a lot of years, and the studio is nearly 200 employees with quite a few seemingly on this project.

Unless they all take really low salaries I'd have a really hard time imagining below $15 million for Bayonetta 2.

I think what really helps Platinum get work though is that they have failure of product instead of failure of process. They ship well rated games on budget and on time, so new publishers keep picking them up hoping they will be the one to publish the breakout hit.

Well aren't developer salaries in Japan generally noticeably less than in the west? I could see the budget being in the 10-15 million range (at least just for the time Nintendo have had the project) but I'm just guessing with little to no basis

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Given how Bayonetta is selling I feel they could take the same amount of money and put it toward 4-5 other projects with niche appeal and hit a larger amount of people and also have a better chance of making their money back.

Like I like Bayonetta so I'm appreciative that we're getting a sequel, but businesswise I don't really see the benefit of taking a risk at this scale when the likelihood of paying off is so low.

Fatal Frame is likely to reach at least the same if not more people in Japan at this rate, and then you'd still have 3-4 titles to target at other markets with the rest of the budget.

I think you've got to consider though that they would have to find three to four developers, with a workforce ready for HD production, and 3-4 ideas/IPs to develop. Even after that there's no guarantee of quality.

Picking up Bayonetta may have been just as expensive but there's a known quantity. The developer had some assets already, a well received framework to work from and they were already working with Nintendo.

Mrgrgr

I think you've got to consider though that they would have to find three to four developers, with a workforce ready for HD production, and 3-4 ideas/IPs to develop. Even after that there's no guarantee of quality.

Picking up Bayonetta may have been just as expensive but there's a known quantity. The developer had some assets already, a well received framework to work from and they were already working with Nintendo.

I think with the situation they had in front of them, along with their belief that they were seriously going to succeed in core games, picking up Bayonetta 2 made perfect sense.

They already had the partnership with Platinum and Bayonetta was one of the few 90 rated games of last generation. Nintendo is very cash rich, so they could easily afford it even if it blew up.

However, looking forward, why would you greenlight Bayonetta 3? Even if you wanted to keep working with Platinum, wouldn't it make sense to put them on something cheaper? They do have some kind of audience that follows their games, but not necessarily at the 8 digit budget scale.

That really doesn't say much though. Nor does it eliminate the possibility that the IP could've been shopped around prior to Nintendo. It simply means Platinum discussed Bayonetta 2 with Sega who likely said if you get someone else to fund it you can use the IP, and then eventually lands on Nintendo. What happens in between seems entirely unclear

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!

When we were speaking about home franchises possibly getting entries also on portable consoles, I remember Nirolak saying that we had to exclude action games, due to how they require more buttons than what normally found on both 3DS and Vita, which was a pretty fair statement.

...Buuuut New 3DS had ZL and ZR too, and probably next handheld will get them as well, so now chances for action games are quite higher.

Mrgrgr

When we were speaking about home franchises possibly getting entries also on portable consoles, I remember Nirolak saying that we had to exclude action games, due to how they require more buttons than what normally found on both 3DS and Vita, which was a pretty fair statement.

...Buuuut New 3DS had ZL and ZR too, and probably next handheld will get them as well, so now chances for action games are quite higher.

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I think with the situation they had in front of them, along with their belief that they were seriously going to succeed in core games, picking up Bayonetta 2 made perfect sense.

They already had the partnership with Platinum and Bayonetta was one of the few 90 rated games of last generation. Nintendo is very cash rich, so they could easily afford it even if it blew up.

However, looking forward, why would you greenlight Bayonetta 3? Even if you wanted to keep working with Platinum, wouldn't it make sense to put them on something cheaper? They do have some kind of audience that follows their games, but not necessarily at the 8 digit budget scale.

I agree. I'm very surprised we haven't seen any kind of 3DS game from Platinum to be honest. Both Inaba and Kamiya are fans of the platform and they've openly discussed ideas for both Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta on the platform IIRC.

However I wouldn't necessarily count out any expensive games from them. Nintendo seems to like to reward developers who have done good work in the past. The recent look at Mario Spikers is a good example and I seem to recall the head of Ganbarion saying that getting to develop Pandora's Tower was a reward for their good work on the Jump DS games.

Mrgrgr

I agree. I'm very surprised we haven't seen any kind of 3DS game from Platinum to be honest. Both Inaba and Kamiya are fans of the platform and they've openly discussed ideas for both Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta on the platform IIRC.

However I wouldn't necessarily count out any expensive games from them. Nintendo seems to like to reward developers who have done good work in the past. The recent look at Mario Spikers is a good example and I seem to recall the head of Ganbarion saying that getting to develop Pandora's Tower was a reward for their good work on the Jump DS games.

I guess I don't really view either of those as a Bayonetta type expense though. Like I could easily see those in the $2-4 million range.

That's what really sticks out to me about the series overall. It seems like it has a notably larger budget than Fatal Frame or Luigi's Mansion or Fire Emblem or Kirby or Yoshi or any of the types of games like that where they're not necessarily top shelf sellers (some of them do very well for what they are though), but they also don't cost some huge fortune in comparison to their sales.

Metroid is a series that keeps falling off the map in comparison because its budget is out of whack with its sales, though I feel that's something they're vastly more committed to than Bayonetta.

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At least Bayonetta 1/2 and Fatal Frame 5 are hitting at the same time, so there's more of a reason to pick up a console with these two titles. Unfortunately there's nothing else worth noting on the schedule after these two(3) titles. Smash and Captain Toad still have no release date.

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That really doesn't say much though. Nor does it eliminate the possibility that the IP could've been shopped around prior to Nintendo. It simply means Platinum discussed Bayonetta 2 with Sega who likely said if you get someone else to fund it you can use the IP, and then eventually lands on Nintendo. What happens in between seems entirely unclear

Yeah it doesn't say much. But in my opinion, based on the relationship SEGA had with Nintendo back then, SEGA telling Platinum to go to Nintendo, or at least suggesting Nintendo as a possible publisher, is not implausible.

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Yeah it doesn't say much. But in my opinion, based on the relationship SEGA had with Nintendo back then, SEGA telling Platinum to go to Nintendo, or at least suggesting Nintendo as a possible publisher, is not implausible.

SEGA abandoned Bayo 2 because of their plan to abandon everything and just focusing on franchises that are guaranteed to make money (Sonic/Yakuza/Aliens etc...). All we know at this point is, SEGA told Platinum to go to Nintendo for publishing Bayo 2. This whole "no one else wanted Bayo 2 except Nintendo" is nonsense. Do we have proof that they approached any other publisher for publishing the game? No.

We don't know that Sega told Platinum to go to Nintendo, that's your assumption on the matter, not knowledge

Do we have proof that Platinum didn't approach other publishers for funding/publishing the game? That's also a no

So it could well have been that Platinum approached other publishers [likely other 1st parties] in hopes of publishing the game and that's just a theory so much as Platinum going directly to Nintendo because Sega said to is a theory

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We don't know that Sega told Platinum to go to Nintendo, that's your assumption on the matter, not knowledge

Do we have proof that Platinum didn't approach other publishers for funding/publishing the game? That's also a no

So it could well have been that Platinum approached other publishers [likely other 1st parties] in hopes of publishing the game and that's just a theory so much as Platinum going directly to Nintendo because Sega said to is a theory

Yeah, you're right. They both are just theories. I didn't want to spread false information or anything. Maybe it was bad choice of words. I hope we get official info about the subject after the game's release at least.

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I guess I don't really view either of those as a Bayonetta type expense though. Like I could easily see those in the $2-4 million range.

That's what really sticks out to me about the series overall. It seems like it has a notably larger budget than Fatal Frame or Luigi's Mansion or Fire Emblem or Kirby or Yoshi or any of the types of games like that where they're not necessarily top shelf sellers (some of them do very well for what they are though), but they also don't cost some huge fortune in comparison to their sales.

Metroid is a series that keeps falling off the map in comparison because its budget is out of whack with its sales, though I feel that's something they're vastly more committed to than Bayonetta.

I think a large part of that difference comes simply from it being a HD console game though and either way Nintendo needed HD content.

I think Devil's Third is much more of a question mark than Bayonetta in that regard. Valhalla didn't even have an engine, they had no prior experience working with each other and Itagaki's track record wasn't that impressive.

Mrgrgr

I think a large part of that difference comes simply from it being a HD console game though and either way Nintendo needed HD content.

I think Devil's Third is much more of a question mark than Bayonetta in that regard. Valhalla didn't even have an engine, they had no prior experience working with each other and Itagaki's track record wasn't that impressive.

Yeah I'm not really questioning picking up Bayonetta 2 so much given that given their viewpoint on what their market position was at the time, it made perfect sense.

I just mention this because the question came up of a potential Bayonetta 3 which I have a lot harder time seeing a path to greenlight for.

With Devil's Third I suspect they had something fairly close to a done game by the time they got to Nintendo and convinced them to give a bit of money to get over the finish line in trade for being exclusive.

Yeah I'm not really questioning picking up Bayonetta 2 so much given that given their viewpoint on what their market position was at the time, it made perfect sense.

I just mention this because the question came up of a potential Bayonetta 3 which I have a lot harder time seeing a path to greenlight for.

With Devil's Third I suspect they had something fairly close to a done game by the time they got to Nintendo and convinced them to give a bit of money to get over the finish line in trade for being exclusive.

It would be interesting to have some form of insight into what developers have pitched games to Nintendo in the past especially since Iwata said they were looking for more content. I'm somewhat surprised Tri-Ace hasn't worked with Nintendo in any capacity for example.

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Yeah it doesn't say much. But in my opinion, based on the relationship SEGA had with Nintendo back then, SEGA telling Platinum to go to Nintendo, or at least suggesting Nintendo as a possible publisher, is not implausible.

SEGA abandoned Bayo 2 because of their plan to abandon everything and just focusing on franchises that are guaranteed to make money (Sonic/Yakuza/Aliens etc...). All we know at this point is, SEGA told Platinum to go to Nintendo for publishing Bayo 2. This whole "no one else wanted Bayo 2 except Nintendo" is nonsense. Do we have proof that they approached any other publisher for publishing the game? No.

NL: When Bayonetta 2 was announced as a Wii U exclusive, the Internet sort of melted down. What was the mood inside Platinum at that time?

Kamiya: Frankly, I was pretty shocked by a lot of the voices heard on the Internet after the announcement. We were making progress with the game with Sega, but certain circumstances (led to it) getting shelved. There was a lot of disappointment regarding the fact that Bayonetta 2 wouldnt see the light of day. We really wanted to be able to make that game, and so the opportunity came up from Nintendo to work together and make Bayonetta 2.

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Yeah, you're right. They both are just theories. I didn't want to spread false information or anything. Maybe it was bad choice of words. I hope we get official info about the subject after the game's release at least.